No, Metal is NOT something you can blame the government for

As my favorite Music forum would say "What the fuck is a George Hawley?" I dunno but he sure has some lame ideas about Metal and politics.

http://www.amconmag.com/postright/2009/08/20/in-the-age-of-obama-will-heavy-metal-suck-again/

"I don’t really have a good explanation for why America’s taste in metal seems to change along with the nation’s political trends. One possibility is due to the fact that both heavy metal and the Republican Party are primarily favored by white men (which is not to say that everyone who likes one will also like the other). A Democrat in the White House suggests that the political and cultural power of white guys is on the decline, and the political tastes of American white guys may change accordingly. This results in either efforts to shed a little bit of their “whiteness” (hence the hip-hoppification of metal in the Clinton years), or outright despair (hence the glut of popular songs during that same period that can only be enjoyed by the type of people who cut themselves in the dark). If this is true, however, it seems similar trends should prevail in country music. This does not appear to be the case (though I admit to knowing hardly anything about country). Perhaps this is because country fans are more confident and comfortable in their own, um, skin." 

Alright,  maybe I'm not on the same planet as this guy but I grew up with a small but significant number of Asian, Latino and Black metalheads. And really, how does the above describe the popularity of hip-hop among white teens? I grew up with hip-hop as well as Metal (and Hardcore/Punk not to forget New Wave). I really don't concern myself with Palin or even trying too hard "hip Republican" Mike Huckabee listens to anymore than if centrist-reformist creeps like Dianne Feinstein liked Current 93 song. None of it would make a damn bit of difference of my opinion of her politics. Using the "racial expectation" cliche in 2010 is plenty lame (ok, so this is actually fronm 2009). Plus, his claim that "There has also been a decine in the puerile satanism that once dominated metal lyrics." obviously show he's not up to date on the Nuclear War Now! release schedule.

This reminds me of an earlier odd connection between extreme metal and the neo-cons written by The Exiled's
Mark Ames back in the early days of Iraq War II: Cakewalking into Quagmires which among other things, is a "mash-up" review of   Michael Moynihan and Didrik Soderlind's -  Lords of Chaos and former Bush Administration strategists, David Frum and Richard Perle's - An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror in this NY Press article It's a rather silly "gonzo journalism" stuff written about a guy that doesn't know shit about Metal. Though at times Ames is an amusing writer.

Anyway, if you're looking for Obama or really ANY Administration and thereby the government in general to make Metal suck or not suck - then it's your own fucking fault - take responsibility and quit whining ya poser!

Johnny Rebel pulls the "I'm not racist but..." card

Louisiana racist country musician and occasional foil on Howard Stern's show, C.J. "Johnny Rebel" Trayan  unsurprisingly "black culture" in this 2001 interview with the white power radio show hosted at the white power Chimpout site . What I'm curious about here is:
1) How these attitudes have disseminated through his music and the more general attitude of the white power movement.
2) The strange contradictions both he and the host have when comes to racism. Both seem to only define racism as "someone who activiely promoted hate and violence towards another race." The host says "now you're a racist if there's even things about another culture that you're uncomfortable with." However, Chimpout's sister site Chimptube calls itself: "the multimedia solution for all your niggerbashing entertainment needs." Yeesh!

This link to the interview (2nd one above) includes many segrationalist songs from the late 1800s and early 1900s I wrote about Trayan in my 2008 paper about Extreme Metal and Extreme Politics  which culled the history of a variety of racist and other controversial musics before and during the history of Heavy Metal.

Trayan/Rebel's been making his racist country tunes since 1966 when he released his first singles:
"Lookin' For a Handout / Kajun Klux Klan" and followed that up the same year with "Nigger Hatin' Me / Who Likes A Nigger?" Musically and lyrically this cavalcade of racist crap (which you can hear in the 2nd link above) – is  shocking yet also unremarkably redundant. To put it bluntly, this shit gets old real quick.

Going back  to the interview, Trayan/Rebel claims "they (blacks) deserve all the same rights that Hispanics enjoy, Caucasians enjoy, Asians enjoy, I certainly don't think of them as less than deserving of those rights." On the other hand, he goes on to complain that "they (blacks) shouldn't be able to impose their goddamn crap on us". OK, the host's generalizing makes a little sense "their are aspects of (their culture) that quite frankly are destructive and negative". Although, this is also like saying trailer trash who beat their wives and get fat as an ox off of BBQ and tankards of Coca-Cola is part of "white culture". Strangely, Trayan/Rebel makes the correlation between whites accepting popular black music, the Civil Rights bill and current tolerance for their place in society. "We were the son of bitches that started on this...we started listening to Rhythm and Blues - that was black music...we started listening to the black music and then they figured that everything else could come along - and it did. It eventually it led to the Civil Rights Bill and eventually the Civil Rights Bill led to more and more - and a lotta your whites out there that think blacks are just another person - no different color, no different any thing...and I won't teach my kids that."

He goes on to say "I'm not a racist - I wanna be with my kind" then follows with "the two things I hate is the attitude towards the white man 'cause they think we owe 'em something ...and next they wanna marry fuckin' white people!...That irritates the livin' shit outta me! When I see a black guy with a white girl that turns my stomach." Then finishes with "why do they make so many kids?...they're just a piss poor race." Rebel's songs have been posted all over YouTube and naturally across white-power forums like Stormfront and German-based Thiazi. Additionally, Rebel's music has been sold by white-power record labels such as Resistance Records and Micetrap Distribution. Contrary to rumor, Johnny Rebel's true identity as noted earlier is CJ Trayan and NOT the famous outlaw country artist, David Allan Coe.